Siding

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This article is about the house covering. See rail siding for an alternative usage of this term.

Siding is the outer covering of a house meant to shed water and protect from the effects of weather.

Siding may be formed of horizontal boards, vertical boards, shingles, or sheet materials. In all four cases, avoiding wind and rain infiltration through the joints is a major challenge, met by overlapping, by covering or sealing the joint, or by creating an interlocking joint such as a tongue-and-groove or rabbet. Since building materials expand and contract with changing temperature and humidity, it is not practical to make rigid joints between the siding elements.

Siding may be made of wood, metal, plastic, or composite materials. It may be attached directly to the building structure (studs in the case of wood construction), or to an intermediate layer of horizontal planks called sheathing.

Contents 1 Wood siding 2 Plastic siding 3 Metal siding 4 Composite siding

[edit] Wood siding

Siding is often made out of wood in overlapping horizontal rows or "courses", called clapboard. In colonial times, Eastern white pine was the most common material. Wood siding can also be made of unpainted weather-resistant woods such as redwood. Jointed horizontal siding may be shiplapped.

Vertical horizontal siding may have a cover over the joint: board and batten, popular in American wooden Gothic revival houses; or less commonly behind the joint--batten and board.

Plywood sheet siding is sometimes used on inexpensive buildings, sometimes with grooves to imitate board-and-batten (T1-11).

Wood shingles or irregular cedar "shake" siding was used in early New England construction, and was revived in Shingle Style and Queen Anne style architecture in the late 19th century.

[edit] Plastic siding

Wood clapboard is often imitated using vinyl. It is usually produced in units twice as high as clapboard. Plastic imitations of wood shingle and wood shakes also exist.

[edit] Metal siding

Utilitarian buildings often use corrugated galvanized steel sheet siding.

Formerly, imitation wood clapboard was made of aluminum: 'aluminum siding'.

[edit] Composite siding

Various composite materials are also used for siding: asphalt, asbestos, fiber cement, aluminum (ACM) etc. They may be in the form of shingles or boards, in which case they are sometimes called clapboard.